Jay and Nick

Ah, Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway, the best of friends. Or are they really? Let's take an in-depth look at their relationship [ick I sound like a trashy magazine].

Nick Carraway: an honest bondsman. He's kind of cynical, he comes from relative money but not huge amounts of money, went to Yale and is pretty sure of himself. He does not seem to fit in with all the East Eggers: they are all super rich and pedigreed, while he's from somewhere in the Midwest, Minnesota I believe. But he is cousins with Daisy and friends with Tom, so that will make him a key player in the chapters to come.

Jay Gatsby is an entirely different story. No one really knows where he comes from, so instead they make it all up. He's apparently a distant relative of Kaiser Wilhelm, or his parents died and left him a lot of money, but Jay tells Nick himself of his background. He was born in the Midwest, orphaned and left money and educated at Oxford. Or so he tells Nick, which doesn't necessarily make it true. But even though Gatsby is fabulously wealthy and has a huge house in which he throws parties in every other day, yet he lives in West Egg, the Egg with the less prestigious reputation of rich people. So everything is not what it seems with Mr. Gatsby.

Their relationship starts when Nick moves in next to Gatsby, but it is a while before Nick is invited to one of his parties. They meet in an odd way and strike up a conversation. Everything is all right, and Gatsby seems like a cool guy, kind of ordinary, served in the war, the usual [except of course, for his mysterious past]. All is well. Gatsby invites Nick to go fly in his airplane with him, male bonding, yippee. And then Nick learns why Gatsby is really interested in him: Gatsby is in love with Daisy Buchanan. They themselves have some history, and Gatsby has never stopped loving her. He knows Nick and Daisy are cousins, and Nick learns from Jordan Baker than Gatsby wants Nick to invite Daisy and him over, but is too cautious to ask because he might come off as rude. Nick does not mind and does it, and that's about where we have gotten to in the book.

Our initial impression of Gatsby is not what we thought it was. However just because he did one manipulative thing does not make him a bad person, really. I think we as the readers don't really know what to make of him at this point in the story. As for Nick and Jay? They are still forming a nice relationship, albeit with some mystery and tension. How will the story end? Well fellow classmates, we'll just have to keep reading.